“How?”
“The Matra could assume him.”
Nikandr sat across from Father in his drawing room, waiting for Mother to join them. A black rook, which had been sitting idly on the nearby perch, suddenly launched into a fit of flapping wings and cawing. The display ceased as soon as it had begun, but now there was a look of intelligence in the eyes that hadn’t been present moments ago.
“Good day, Mother,” Nikandr said.
The rook arched its head back and cawed once. “Quickly, Nischka. I have little time.”
“I wish to discuss Nasim.” Father opened his mouth to speak, but Nikandr talked over him. “There is little enough to report, which is why I needed to speak to you both.”
“Go on,” Father said.
“I want Mother to assume Nasim’s form.”
The moment Atiana had said it, Nikandr knew they had to try it. He was surprised he hadn’t thought of it sooner. He was surprised his mother hadn’t, until he realized that she probably had. It was a dangerous thing to do, made no less dangerous by Nasim’s unpredictable nature. And there were other considerations as well. It was a practice that had been used long ago by the earliest of the Matri against the Aramahn-sometimes to gain information, sometimes to control them for short periods. It was a practice that had been forbidden as part of the Covenant between the fledgling Grand Duchy and the Aramahn. Were they to resume the practice and be discovered, there would be serious repercussions from Iramanshah.
The rook flapped its wings several times.
“Impossible,” Father said as he reached up and stroked the black feathers of the bird’s breast. “Has Ranos not told you the steps Fahroz has taken?”
“All the more reason to do something now, before it’s too late.”
Aramahn were already refusing to work on Khalakovan ships. Some were still arriving, but word had already spread among the archipelago, and fewer ships bearing goods and food were arriving because of it. As hard as Volgorod had been hit by the blight, they could sustain no more than a few months without the Aramahn.
“That isn’t all,” Father said. “Zhabyn, as I feared, has delivered an ultimatum. Either we give him the boy by tomorrow morning or he and the traitor dukes leave to join the incoming fleet. He has threatened a blockade, allowing no ships to pass in or out until we give him up.”
“The same choice left to us by Fahroz.”
Father allowed himself a smile. He looked haggard, but then he turned casually toward Nikandr, a steely look in his eyes. “Barring a confession or conclusive evidence, we have two clear choices. We can give the boy to Fahroz or we can give him to Zhabyn, though the latter seems no choice at all. He will simply torture the boy to find the information he needs, and I have no doubt it will be skewed to his side of the conflict. Which leaves the Aramahn… It grates that they have demanded the boy, but they are in the right here. We have nothing to offer them for evidence, so if we assume the boy’s mind and word ever reached them that we had, we would be left with nothing.”
“It isn’t whether or not he had something to do with the crossing. It’s in what capacity. Who used him, and why? Can they do so again? And if so, when?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“No one will know. We’ll find an excuse to keep Jahalan and Udra away, and we can move Ashan to another cell. Even if Nasim understands what’s happening to him, he’ll most likely never tell a soul, and even if he does, it would be easy to deny.”
Father stared into Nikandr’s eyes, clearly doubting the soundness of this decision, but then the rook croaked and pecked at the crossbar it was standing on. “We will do it.”
Father looked shocked. “You are sure?”
The rook cawed. “You are right to worry over the threats we face from the dukes and the Aramahn, both, but I fear we have not been paying enough attention to what this boy might have done. What he might have leveraged here on Khalakovo to summon such a beast. If there is some small risk of giving offense, then I say the risk is worth it.”
Father considered this for a time, but then nodded. “It will be done. Tonight.”
CHAPTER 28
Rehada, flying high over the island under a bright and cloudless sky, adjusted her hold on the sail lines, maneuvering the skiff to a more westerly course. Unlike the larger Landed ships, the skiff had only a single keel running fore to aft that kept the craft aligned with the ley lines of the island below her. It was a simple craft, not so different from the ships used in the early days of exploration, granted life by the nature of the windwood hull and the dhoshaqiram shipwright who had cured and shaped it.
There was much to do today, but Rehada’s thoughts kept slipping back to her time with Nasim deep in the roots of Radiskoye. The heat. The pain. So intense. She had never been at the mercy of the elements in that manner. Always, even when she was young, even while she was learning, she had been in control. Even when she offered herself up to the flame in penance for her thoughts, she was in control. There, sitting with Nasim, she had been at his mercy.
And there was no doubt that he had been the one pulling the strings. The only question was whether or not he had understood what he was doing, whether it was malicious or not. She didn’t think so, mainly because of what had come before.
Over the years-especially when she was new to the ways of bonding-she had hoped through her bonding that she could understand more about the world beyond and so learn more about this life. She had hoped to learn what she could expect when she passed and how she might better prepare herself for her next life-all in hopes of one day reaching vashaqiram.
But she, like nearly all Aramahn who tried such things, had been disappointed. She had been unable to feel anything more than a vague sense of otherness that emanated from the hezhan she bonded with. Her time there would often evoke memories, especially ones she had long forgotten, and some she could not remember at all- memories from prior lives, or perhaps those she had yet to live-but never had she felt like she was experiencing Adhiya.
But there in Radiskoye, while allowing the suurahezhan to occupy her consciousness, she had felt another soul. Nasim. She bid the hezhan to approach him, and when it did, she felt something so unexpected that she nearly cried. He was so miserable in the real world. But there… There, he was in rapture. He was filled with joy, with wonder, with love beyond understanding. She had often wished she could see the world beyond, to touch it and taste it. Feeling some small amount of what Nasim felt, she knew these to be foolish urges. Who needed eyes when such heights of emotion were possible? Who needed to taste, to hear, to feel, when the mind could soar high along the firmament?
She craved to bask in his light, but she knew she had to speak with him, not for Nikandr’s benefit, but her own.
Nasim, she called.
His attention shifted. It felt as if a bright star had focused its rays upon her, and though it burned, she did not care.
Nasim, it was you that day, wasn’t it? You were there when I summoned the suurahezhan.
There was no response, but she could sense that he was listening. How many others had done what she was doing now? What had Ashan spoken to him about? And what had he learned?
We hope that you will join our cause. We wish to rid these islands of the taint from the Landed. She paused, but when she heard no response, she continued. We wish you to open the rift, the same rift used to allow the suurahezhan to cross.
She repeated these thoughts many times, but Nasim only continued to watch, to wait.
Did you know that men died that day?
A flare.
